Alex stared at his guardians, waiting for one of them to say something else.

Grandma Howe smiled. “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine. When you get to the end, you’ll know just what to do.”

“But how will I know where to go and what to do?”

John put his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “It’s a straight path. You can’t fail.” He gave a gentle push and Alex went beyond the threshold. Instantly the door reappeared behind him, closing him inside. Now there really was no going back.

As he walked on and his eyes adjusted to the bright path, Alex wondered how this place was possible. Did the Council build this secret passage? Did they even know it existed? Maybe Uncle John was keeping secrets from the rest of them.

Fifteen minutes passed and Alex could see another silver door at the end. He quickened his pace, eager to find whatever it was that he was looking for. He checked his watch. 2:35 AM. He wondered whether his guardians were still awake, waiting for him.

He reached the second entrance and saw that it had no handle. Alex touched it to see if anything would happen. Nothing. He tutted in irritation and searched around to find a switch or key to open the door, but there was none. Then he heard the same whirring noise he had heard at the entrance. Out of nowhere, a robotic voice echoed in the corridor. “Please state your name,” it said.

“Alexander Howe III,” he replied.

“Access Denied!”

He tried his mother’s name, “Miriam Howe.”

The voice didn’t say anything. The whirring sound grew louder and faster. Finally, the voice said, “Access Denied! Three attempts left until total lockdown.” His guardians hadn’t told him anything about this. Surely they hadn’t forgotten? He tried his uncle’s name. That didn’t work either and nor did his grandmother’s name.

This was his last chance. He thought of going back to ask his relatives, but he suspected they would not hear him through the closed door. Again, he searched around for some clue. Just then, he noticed a small inscription in Cuneiform on the door. He touched it and immediately a thousand different inscriptions appeared, all in ancient languages. There was Hebrew, four different dialects of Aramaic, Sanskrit, Egyptian, Arabic, Urdu, and many others. Alex realized they all read one thing. A name. Aidan. He read it aloud and the robotic voice said, “Access Granted!” The door slid just like the first one, revealing a room. Once he entered, the door materialized again behind him.

The room was large with hundreds of books crammed on shelves all around. In the center was a small waterfall. Alex gasped. The flowing water was red. His cheeks tingled as he came to the realization that it was in fact blood. The blood flowed down from the fountainhead into a small pool.

His stomach churned. Fear crept up his skin. He turned around, paranoid that there might be some kind of monster behind him. A chill crawled up his spine. What if there were vampires here? He tiptoed cautiously over to the pool to take a closer look. But then he stopped, afraid that if he came any closer, something would jump out and kill him. He waited and looked around once again, keeping his right ear pricked for any sounds. The sound of the cascading blood echoing through the room was the only thing he could hear.

Alex wandered around the rest of the room. There were chairs and a Louis XVI style desk. There was also a coffee table, exquisitely decorated in gold and platinum, and four lounge chairs, a deep red sofa, and two recliners around the coffee table. He walked over to the bookshelf on his left. The literature ranged from science, history, political science, legends, classical, Greco-Roman literature, Shakespeare and ancient literature. There were scrolls from Alexandria, Taxila, Nalanda, Athens, Rome, and many other ancient centers of learning. Alex returned to the desk. On it there was an old book.

It was bound in leather and the cover showed a silver cross with a brass snake wound around it. In plain English, the long title read The History of the Dynasty and a Plain Translation of the Verse of the Ardemic Prophecies. Beneath this was the subtitle, Included: Supplementary Material on the Secret Histories and on the Lineage of King Anaxagoras XXIX by John Benjamin Howe. Alex opened the book to see strange writing in a language unknown to him. Next to these were the corresponding English translations. He browsed through and read the section on the Ardemic Prophecies, which had been bookmarked:

XXIX. There will come a time when the Earth’s moon shall darken. A large destructive force will strike down upon the armies of the King. Fear not for the Lord of All Bloods shall save them and destroy the impure ones that were cast out of the Earth. The False prophet known as the Falsifier is the Enemy of the King and yet he shall be called the Son of Men and Anisaei alike.

XXX. The Red Serpent, the One from whom all things came shall avenge the deaths of his servants. He shall resurrect them and make his Children immortal.

XXXI. And then I saw the One who is False and he said to me, “I have a power, unlike any other that no being has ever known nor ever shall. Only you, and soon the King shall know.” And he told me the secret, which none but the Holy King and I know. This king shall be known as the direct heir of the Red Serpent, and he shall be called Anaxagoras.

Alex stopped. So many questions rushed through his mind as he flipped through the other texts. He stopped at another bookmarked section and started to read:

A Brief Overview of the Nyrax Dynasty

The Realm of Migra was a place where people dwelt in eternal unity and selflessness. They had knowledge which was handed down by tongue and by written documents. This wisdom consisted of various philosophies, religions, cultures and all other aspects of societies across the Universe. At that time, 150000 BC, they were the most advanced civilization in the Universe. When they came to the Earth about 10000 BC their knowledge spread throughout the planet but was distorted by the inhabitants of the Earth. The lofty ideas, founded by the Migrites, were propagated in the Vedas, the laws of Hammurabi, and other treatises founded in Egypt, India, Arabia, Greece, and Atlantis.

Stories of this race abound in religious and philosophical texts. They are represented as beings from the sky and other worlds. They were given names like Devas and Asuras from the Vedas. Gods like Osiris, Isis, and Horus were actual people who were worshiped for their supernatural abilities. They came from Migra where they developed these abilities. In fact, all Migrites have these “powers.” These special methods were recorded in texts and were later absorbed into the teaching of Yoga, Pranayama, Zen Buddhism, and even the teachings of Christ. That which the great teachers taught was all handed down from the Migrites. Over thousands of years, these powers became a part of evolution, and the Migrites were born with them. The notion of spirits, demons, and other supernatural entities were added later by so called “Avatars” and “Saviors”. In truth these elements were nothing but a figment of their imaginations. There was no scientific evidence for any of it.

Before the reign of Argos, the first king of the Nyrax dynasty, there was complete chaos. The planet had been democratically ruled, but there was widespread corruption among the Senate and Consuls. One man rose to the top and declared himself Emperor. This was Markos, who ruled for a mere one thousand years; at that time, the inhabitants of Migra had an average life expectancy of two thousand years. They also had the ability to survive without food or water. They took their energy in its purest form, directly from the sun. Therefore there were no diseases or sicknesses amongst the population. Only death resulting from old age remained inevitable. In 10000 BC, however, they learned how to cheat death and taught Christ the technique much later. They were able to resurrect themselves but this technique was kept a secret by the Great Teachers. Of course, problems arose when the Kings learned to do the same and so after the reign of Anaxagoras XXV (c. 10000 BC), the kingdom deteriorated. After the reign of Alexandros II, war broke out.